A photographer’s nightmare is having to deal with corrupt hard disk drives, so we take backup upon backup of all our photos and videos. We have multiple external hard disks and we back up to the cloud. We do what we can to keep our data safe and secure. External hard disk drives, however, will eventually fail, and the likelihood of this happening hinges on how often your hard disks are thrown around. With the SanDisk Extreme 510, the company is hoping to partly resolve those issues.
Built for those on-the-go
The SanDisk Extreme 510 is built tough, yet remains portable and light. The rubber bumper protects the drive from accidental drops. I’ve thrown it to the ground from several heights – knee high to head high – and made sure it landed on all its sides – face, back, and sides. Plugged it back in, and all the data is still there, with no corruption.
It’s also IP55 certified, meaning it’s protected from dust ingress as well as low-pressure water jets. You can’t (and shouldn’t) be throwing it into a lake, but for the photographers who would be trekking outdoors, there’s no reason to worry about rain and rugged terrain.
Pocketable, fast performance
The SanDisk Extreme 510 is not really designed for archiving; it’s designed for on-the-go high capacity photo and video transfer. At 480GB, it is more than enough for a photoshoot or a short video shoot, and transferring the files to and from it is super fast. It uses USB 3, so if you have newer laptop loaded only with USB-C, you’ll need to purchase the adaptor.
Below are the read/write results using Xbench and Blackmagic.
Bang for buck
The SanDisk Extreme 510 is a competent, pocketable SDD that delivers what it boasts: rugged design and performance. It’s clearly aimed at professionals who work in dusty, harsh, outdoor conditions. I can see this being used by photo journalists deployed in various parts of the world where weather conditions are tough. It is unfortunate, though, that it only comes in the 480GB capacity configuration. Having higher capacity options would have been useful, but, perhaps, the IP55 certification comes with this compromise. It’s priced at $249, but it is well worth the investment if you have suffered in the past with normal portable hard disks that are prone to the elements.
